Panic was beginning to take over. The little lizard flailed and squeaked and tried to free herself but she was sinking deeper and deeper. Her eyes popped with terror and she tried harder and harder until, at last, one of her legs popped out of the ground. Immediately, she lashed out, trying to find solif ground and sunk her claws into the soft but stable earth in front of her. With all of her tiny might, she pulled and pulled until another leg came free and she had more strength to pull herself.

It was tedious and exhausting but, at last, she pulled herself from from the swamp. Immediately, she scuttled forward and dove onto the yeti's foot, shivering with terror, shocked into silence. She held on tight to the fur on his ankle, too tired to move another inch.

Imp opened his jaws to answer Reseda--going to make some smartass remark, no doubt--but she was scurrying off into the swamp.

And leaving him behind.

"Hey! Wait up, asshole!" he yelled after her indignantly. But she was gone, determined to pull ahead. Disgruntled--and why had he expected friendship, of all Gembound?--he turned to look behind him.

Far behind, in the distance--way back--there was a larger group, sticking together. A couple seemed to be struggling with the mud, but they were too far to really tell if it was really a dangerous sort of "stuck," or just "eww gross this mud is disgusting" kind of "feet jammed down there for a moment" stuck.

His head swivelled to face back forward.

Even farther in the distance, ahead, was a group of three or four. Reseda seemed to be trying to catch up to them, but they were so far off that Imp knew she'd have trouble.

Imp was torn--he knew he'd not be able to really catch up or move back right now, but a decision still had to be made. Should he plan to slow down, and go back to the rest? Group survival seemed a good option, especially when a first, second or even third place now seemed so far out of sight. Reseda and those other four probably had it in the bag.

Imp couldn't even see tiny Garnet way off in the hazy distance.

But did he trust the stupid Gembound behind him to cooperate?

...Sure, why not?

He'd keep his eye on both groups, for now, but his focus--he realized, as he slipped in the mud and nearly went down--had to stay on survival.

Agate sized up the situation, heaving a deep breath. To their knowledge, and their experience, and especially to their fellow champions, this looked like suicide.

"Stay calm, Mayngo, if you struggle too much you will only wriggle deeper!" They called, hoping the gembound would listen. Spreading their wings, they edged their log forward, and stretched out their talons to grasp at one of the skull's horns. They did their best to unstick the fossa's skull from the quicksand without making matters worse. "If you can, get your paw upon the log... Be careful not to waste your energy fighting the marshes! I'm with you! Do! Not! Panic!"

With a great motion, Mayngo's skull broke and Gatto's efforts suddenly were unhindered. The momentum sent them flying back, flinging themself into the deep end of the nearby marsh waters. There was a squawk of surprise, and in that moment, they did not know if Mayngo was safe or not. It no lingered mattered.

agate has FAILED to help mayngo and is now in danger themselves

Ru was lost in a sea of panic, the mud sucking at their limbs and draining their strength with every movement. They barely even heard the voice of Opal cut through the panic, but it served to ground them. The Opal was right, once more. Panic did nothing to help. Ru forced itself to calm down, slow its pattering heart, cease its struggles. Look for ways out. It noticed a root that stuck out not far from them.

It shifted the talon within its jaws, and shot its head forward, grabbing the root between its teeth, and pulled. It took all its strength. Its muscled burned with the strain, being pushed far more than was healthy for a gembound hatched again so recently. It managed to loop one foot over it. It felt like it was dragging boulders. Pull half its body. Dragging mountains. Then, finally, their back legs came free of the mud, stuck together. Its tail was caked with mud--more a solid weight than hair at this point.

They pulled themselves from the mud, and that was all they could do. They laid their head, jaws caked in mud, on the ice, a surface slightly safer than the mud. It choose to lay down. It could afford a small rest. At least after all that. Just for a moment.

The Fossa struggled, digging in his claws, pain shooting through him as he used his injured leg. Without his skull, he would surely be dead and gone, drowned by the sand. But the skull only had a few holes the sand could come through, so it filtered in slowly.

The clotting wounds broke open, blood spilling down his back, and he snarled and snapped his teeth in wild-eyed panic, barely hearing Gatto not far from him, growling around a mouthful of feathers that had gotten caught in his mouth in his desperate, futile biting.

The sand was up to his nose, then, and he was starting to inhale it, when he finally pulled, and the back of the skull broke, and he went staggering back, blinking blearily at the sudden brightness, coughing out any sand he had inhaled, the feathers scattering across the log. Already, the bald skin of his head was beginning to sting.

The skull rested, half consumed by the sands.

Nemean uttered grunts of panic when the fog started to roll in. Astraea lifted his head higher to see himself when Vargas chimed in.

Tugging Astraea's short fur, Nemean leaned into the Overseer's words. He could see them. "What are they doing?" she pressed, nodding vehemently at his words. They were going in! The flood was coming to sweep them all away. She cackled lightly and rubbed her tiny paws together. "Good, good... thank you," she muttered, tapping her fingertips together.

More of them made it through the floods than Astraea would have expected. Nemean was rumbling with obscenities but quieted as they approached the Dead Marsh with a quick, "Not one!?"

Vargas was speaking again and Astraea half-turned his head to see him, nodding to the question.

"They are set on... something," he commented. He did not know where their designs came from, but most of them came out looking relatively similar. Plain and hardly terrifying. "But heavy testing, yes; their bodies and their magic are not as strong."

Nemean hooted suddenly as the swamp began to claim victims. They fought it. She was standing on her tippy toes looking into the marsh, yelling, pumping a fist into the air—when one of them succeeded in pulling itself free from death. "No! UGH!" she blurted, stomping a little foot on Astraea's forehead.

With a disgusted spit, the sprite darted into the air and descended toward the group. Her aggressive buzzing radiated like a headache in those she was near. She scoffed at the ice and flicked a claw to Asimona. "Should have killed you in the dungeon!" she barked. "Like your ugly horse friend!" Her eyes snapped to the scaled creature. "And THIS one! Ugly!! Ugly.. uh, horse!"

She dive-bombed Ru, conjuring a giant shimmering club. With cheering fanfare, Nemean whacked Ru back into the swamp. "HOME-RUN!" she hollered, an echoing chorus of applause filling the marsh with deafening sound. She fluttered higher to look upon those remaining before darting back toward her seat upon Astraea.

Ru has been knocked back into the marsh. Their group may roll to save them.

DESERT ROSE THIRTY-FIVE
broken bones, set at home

Thirty-Five's heart beat in tune with his wings. Noxious gasses flowed under the thick leather of his limbs as he held his head high, eyes on the vultures beginning to circle on his level. A faint cough overtook him as he went to focus back on his rhythm. A shake of his head took him out of the spell and a hard blink brought him into the present, the coughing reducing to a few wheezes here and there.

He took a moment of soaring (and soft coughs) to look around the marsh, taking in the various groups. Below him his brother ran. Good- he was still safe. Large ears perked forward as he looked to the others in his group. It seemed past champions seemed to be at the head, except for one dog creature. Didn't he see it scurrying away with its tail between its legs at a scratch from the Matriarch? He may have to keep an eye on that one. A second champion, however, was stuck according to Thirty-Five. A shame, really. The dragon mulled over what actions he could take as he flew, running his thick tongue over his trophy. If he went down now, he'd risk losing his place or breathing in more gases.

Readjusting the feather in his cheek, Thirty-Five raised his head. He was safe up here. Thankfully no lizard was around to throw him off with magic, as far as he saw. Ahead, though, curious colors flashed over the muck, catching Thirty-Five's eye as he curled his arms closer to his chest. It was a form he recognized, another champion. They were at such an extreme length ahead that Thirty-Five almost didn't notice them. He never thought of the bird turtle to be competitive, but it may have been chance that they were so far forward- that water threw him off horribly, and it made sense to push others forward too.

The dragon beat his wings to raise himself closer to the high ceiling of the cave, continuing to find his way from thermal to thermal like a thermomotive machine and keeping his weary legs off the ground. It was almost the final stretch. They were almost there.

Vargas snorted as Nemean flew off. The Merchant was now paralleling the swamps, pacing down to get a better look--Vargas by his side, trotting with lanky motions to check the mud. As Nemean returned, he spoke.

"You're interfering with the test," he pointed out--but it was with a deep-seated amusement. The whole test was interference, really--if Nemean wanted to chuck a little something extra at them, well, she was a Master and that was her prerogative.

He paused to look around. He'd forgotten how terribly irritating Nemean's buzzing could be--though he had a sort of Pavlovian response to it, now. A tendril of acidic green drool stretched down from his jaw and dropped into the marsh with a soft hiss, and Vargas' six eyes settled on the struggling creature Nemean had knocked back into the marsh. He stood there, staring at it--Quartz, wasn't it? Five-Two-Four, if he wasn't mistaken.

Just large enough for a good meal.

Shango turned, one feathered forelimb hanging, for a moment, midair. The buzzing had him flattening his ears back, irritated. He was still maintaining his nice, fresh stream of air--still bringing the canyon's cooler breeze to flow over the swamp.

Catlike he lowered himself, tail twitching, into a crouch. It wasn't predatory--rather, it was the stance of a feline being very, very annoyed by a very loud sound and wanting, very much, to avoid it. There was a flash, and he flinched--and then the tiny fairy was shrieking something (equally irritating to his ears) as the Quartz fell back into the marsh. Shango bared his long, thick fangs to hiss, and twisted his air magic toward Ru.

He wanted to give him some added lift. To redirect the flowing air just a bit, to briefly strengthen it, to help Ru out. This was stupid--that pink flying thing, he decided, is stupid. Glowing eyes shifted back to the horse-creature floundering in the swamp, and his tail lashed as he stood upright again. Nemean was flying off; he just had to concentrate on keeping his air current flowing strong.

"PUUUUUUUUUSH," he demanded, probably asking the trapped Gembound to help haul itself out. The air, however--his very magicka--seemed to reverse course... Nemean's doing? Shango at once cast her a deeply-suspicious glance, but when he looked back to Ru--things were going badly.

The air had swept downward instead of upward, and though Shango turned back and tried to fix it, it seemed to be trying to drill Ru even deeper into the swamp.

...And Shango, as he stepped back toward the other, found himself not watching where he was going--and a single step floundered him in the mud. Now he, too, was sinking. A pathetic, catlike wail escaped him, followed by a plaintive, frightened "NO!"

Shango now knew fear.

Real fear. Terror, in fact. He thrashed, briefly, and the muck immediately opened around him--quicksand swallowing him down. His forelimbs were half-sunk, nearly to his elbows; his hindquarters were vanished beneath the surface.

He wailed in fear, the sound ear-splitting, perhaps distressing to hear, his scale-feathered wings batting uselessly at the air. But they caught nothing--his magicka had sputtered out, the air gone still.

Shango realized then--in his own and simple way--that if he died here, if he drowned and was sucked beneath, the bad air might get everyone. ...Was he the only one that could save them from that? This lent his struggles further urgency--more determination, a presence of mind taking him and steadying him. It focused him enough that he paused, for a moment--panting--in his struggles to gather up his magicka for a final attempt--his last, if he failed, given how his chest now met the stagnant water.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and he prayed, in his own way--he prayed to the winds to carry him free. "Stoooorm," he murmured, and it was a quiet plea.

Almost at once the wind howled up around him, tearing him free from the mud--catching his wings. His eyes sprang back open, wings beating at the gust of strong air that lifted him--propelling him up, out of the quicksand. Mud streaked his legs and flanks, dripping from him--and for a moment he hovered there, staring down at Ru, his three wisps flashing around him as they orbitted. One of his hind legs hung at a strange angle--twisted, broken at the ankle by his flailing in the mud.

"Sorrrrry," he called down, his voice deeply distressed. "Triiiied--to help."